Effect of retinoic acid on cell-cell adhesiveness in cloned BHK21/C13 cells which form piling-up colonies.

The effect was studied of retinoic acid (RA) on cell-cell adhesiveness in Ag8-1 cells, which are piling-up colony-forming cells cloned from a Syrian hamster kidney fibroblastic cell line BHK21/C13. From the piled-up part of the colonies grown with RA (10 microM), many cells were dissociated by mere shaking or pipetting. The dissociated cells soon adhered to and spread on plastic surfaces in the presence of RA. The number of cells per colony increased almost at the same rate in the presence or absence of RA. The effect of RA on the appearance of cells dissociable from colonies was noticeable above 0.1 microM, prominent from 1 to 10 microM, greater when added in the earlier stages of colony formation and negligible when added just before the dissociation assay. Single cells from the monolayer culture grown with RA (10 microM) had less tendency to aggregate than did those from the control culture. Cells from the colonies grown with RA adhered to and spread on a plastic dish for bacterial use, but control cells seldom adhered. These results indicate that RA decreases the cell-cell adhesiveness or suppresses the development of it but increases cell-substratum adhesiveness.